


Distress

by Ink_Glitch



Series: Fur & Feathers (MCU Shapeshifters AU) [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Cute, Cute Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Hybrids, Light Angst, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Canon Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Post-Avengers (2012), Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Self-Sacrificing Tony, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve is a mutt, Steve still misses Bucky, Sweet, Tony is a cat, at least steve thinks so, shape-shifiting, stark needs to stop throwing himself into danger, super cute, talking about feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 10:30:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18809353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ink_Glitch/pseuds/Ink_Glitch
Summary: Steve and Tony get along like, well, cats and dogs. They clash over most things, and nobody is happy about it, least of all the very two in question. Tony finds Steve overbearing and overprotective, and Steve finds tony reckless and is worried he’s going to get himself killed. Finally, it comes to a head.





	Distress

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Doggone Catastrophe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17573822) by [janonny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/janonny/pseuds/janonny). 



Tony was seething. It had been a good hour, and his ears were still pinned back. The fur on the back of his neck was raised, and as he moved around the holographic components of his newest pet project, his tail twitched with so much power it had swept a mug of cold coffee off one of his work benches, doing little to improve his mood. He hated being chewed out by the perfect pinnacle of heroism, Steve Rogers.

His teammate didn’t seem to understand the point of a metal suit. He could take hits that the others couldn’t. Sure, it might still hurt, but he wasn’t going to end up bleeding, burned, or with other serious injury. A bruise or two was annoying, but he had never been seriously injured taking a hit for any of the others. The worst he had ended up with was a badly bruised side, which hurt, but a week working with blueprints from the common area and four advil every eight hours for two or three days and he was fine. Much better than Hawkeye would have been if he had been the one punched by a robot with the weight of an elephant and the ability to lift a fully loaded cement truck.

The stubborn dog was always telling him off after battle for things like that, but Tony didn’t intend to stop any time soon. His teammates, even in Stark-Tech armor, were too soft and squishy for him allow them to take hits like that. 

And anyway, all he had done today was block Cap from getting hit by a missile launcher. Even the suit he built in a cave with scraps was able to stop a few bullets. His current suit could easily stop a missile. Hell, he doubted a tank could do much damage beyond banging him around a bit. It certainly wouldn’t incapacitate him. So why was Cap so worked up over a missile and a small bruise or two?

******************************  
-Debriefing, Common Floor, 1 Hr Prior-  
“Stark! What the hell was that? Why did you jump in front of that missile?” Steve looked furious.

“Be-cause you don’t have metal armor and humans without heavy protection are prone dying? Even with that shield and the super-serum, it seems safer that the most protected person on the team take hits like that.”

“Humans without super-serum are even more prone to dying! What if that armor failed, or couldn’t take it? I’d survive, and if I got hurt I’d heal in a few days max!”

“Relax Clifford, I only got a few bruises, no worse than whacking myself with a wrench in the workshop. And I’ve tested my armor against missiles. I knew it would hold up.” Despite his calm tone, Tony was getting angry, as evident by the thump of his tail against the chair and the way his ears were starting to pull back. This was a repeat of the conversation they had after almost every battle.

Steve’s own ears were in an alert position and his tail stiff. A hint of a growl was in his voice. “I don’t want you taking hits for all of us like that. We’re all adults capable of handling ourselves.”

Tony let out a hiss. “And I don’t want you guys dead because you couldn’t dodge. I’ll keep taking those hits, and you cannot stop me.”

He stood with his usual cat-hybrid grace and stalked out of the room.

******************************

Tony hated that he and Steve clashed so often, even if their cat & dog hybrid forms seemed to indicate that it was simply fate. But Tony had never believed that “cat hybrids and dog hybrids can never get along” bullshit. Sure, people usually had traits from their animal forms, but Jarvis had been a dog, and he was the person closest to Tony for a very long time. 

Honestly, Tony thought he and Steve should get along very well all things considered. He had heard the stories from Aunt Peggy, how Steve had regularly disobeyed orders, and had jumped solo from a plane behind enemy lines with no army training in order to rescue his best friend. He could see how his pre-afghanistan self would rub Steve the wrong way, but now they seemed to share a sense of humor. Mostly, Tony had just decided that Steve was a hypocrite.

He sighed, he wasn’t actually focusing on the blueprints, and the last thing he needed to do was absentmindedly put something in the wrong place and accidentally blow up the workshop when he tried to actually build something. He forced his neck fur to relax and took a deep breath. 

“J, what time is it?” He was hungry, especially after having not eaten after the battle early, too annoyed to think about it. 

“It is 4:36 pm sir. You have been working for about one hour twelve minutes.”

Tony nodded. Bruce had probably made something for the team after the debriefing, and Tony was ready to raid the fridge for leftovers. Food, and a cat-nap in that one sunbeam that shone perfectly through the windows and landed on a strategically placed overstuffed couch no matter the time of year, sounded heavenly. 

******************************

It was a week later that the tension between the two finally broke. The two were in a cargo truck, fighting with the villains of the day, as it barreled along a raised bridge. Widow was up front commandeering the wheel, Hawkeye was on the roof as a spotter, Bruce was remaining Bruce, and Thor was on Asgard at the time.

Cap had turned his back on one of them, decking another, and Tony saw the whatever (energy? laser?) gun begin to charge. A blast from that would seriously hurt, and he had already been hit once in the armor with no problem. He moved to intercept and the beam partially hit him, throwing him back. It had also hit the side of the trailer, blasting it open, and Tony was thrown out the side of the truck and off the bridge by the force.

It was easy to recover and fly back up, catlike reflexes and all that, and he swiftly knocked the guy out. Steve had finished tangling with his own opponent, and Natasha had control of the steering. All in all, a successful mission Tony thought. They hadn’t even cause damage to the road. 

He was feeling pretty good as he sauntered into the debriefing room. Hawkeye and Widow seemed to share his sentiments. The feathers on Clint’s neck and cheeks were fluffed in a contented way, and though Natasha’s hair hid the small mink ears on her head, she had a self-satisfied smile on her face that always accompanied the thrashing of an opponent.

When Cap entered the room, however, he looked very displeased. His tail was stiff, fur on his neck raised, ears angled back. Tony was shocked. He had never seen Steve this worked up. Even when they clashed, he had never seen his canine teammate with raised fur.

“Oh no, not this conversation again. I’ve told you many times. I’m not going to stop taking hits.” Tony decided it was time to nip the argument in the bud. 

“Next time you do something like that, I’m going to suspend you from the team.” The words were near literally growled out. Steve sounded like he was going to transform and bite someone.

“What the hell Cap? Suspension is for when people do something reckless, dangerous, or threatening to the rest of the team! I haven’t done anything like that since joining this little gang of heroes.” Steve’s words had completely thrown Tony for a loop. Nobody had ever had to be suspended from the Avengers, and that threat was only used in joking when something small happened, like Clint losing a gym-sock in the tower vents and stinking up the whole common-floor.

“And that’s exactly what you keep doing. Throwing yourself into danger. You threw yourself in the way of a mysterious weapon and got blown of a bridge!”

“I’m FINE Cap, not even a dent in the armor. I can take it! You seem to fail to understand the concept of METAL ARMOR.”

“And what about the time when you end up not fine?” The words were growled so viciously that Clint and Natasha decided it was time to make a strategic retreat and slipped out of the door.  
Just as Tony was about to hiss back that he knew getting hurt was a possibility, he was a fucking hero and could take it, a smell hit him.

This in and of itself was unusual, to be able to actually smell what someone was feeling the feeling had to be incredibly intense. It usually only happened in moments of extreme emotion: tragedy, disaster, proposals, things like that. Even then, the scent was usually relatively mild.

However, the acrid scent of DISTRESS! FEAR! felt like someone had punched him in the nose and the gut. It was overpowering, and nothing like what he had expected from Steve. If anything, it should have been anger that he smelled. When he recovered from the shock and looked up, Steven looked like he was about to collapse. His knuckles were white and he was panting.

“Alright, clearly you have something going on here that I am not understanding.” He made his way over to Steve, grabbed his arm, and pulled him toward his safe space a few feet down the hall: an art studio Tony had set up when he first learned of Steve’s hobby. Steve tried to resist, but Tony was stronger than people gave him credit for, and he knew Steve wouldn’t use enough force to hurt him.

“You and I,” he guided Steve to the window seat, “are going to talk this out like actual adults. Sit.” He pushed Steve onto one end of the bay window before tucking himself at the other end, tail wrapping over his feet.

“Now you tell me exactly what happened back there. What sent you all middle-school principal on me?”

Steve had started to shake a little, his hands trembling where they rested against his legs. This was not good. Tony made a quick decision, and in an instant, he had become a soft Savannah cat, his spotted coat warm in the sun. He quickly stretched each leg before stepping across the gap between them. 

He stepped onto Steve’s lap and placed his front paws on his shoulders so he was staring directly into his face. Then, without hesitation, all four sets of claws dug into Steve’s skin, needle-sharp points piercing directly through his clothes. Steve jerked instinctively, swatting Tony away.

He landed on his feet, and when he looked at Steve he seemed to have accomplished his mission of snapping him out of whatever was going through his head. Returning to his human form, He sat back down on the window seat. 

“What the hell Tony?!” Tony just shrugged.

“I needed to get you out of your head, so we can talk like adults. Now talk. What happened?”

“Nothing. I was just angry a-”

“Bullshit. Steve, I can SMELL your distress, and not just faintly. It feels like you punching my nose. So tell me what happened. We’ve never seen you like that before.”

Steve sighed.”I..” He stopped, ran a hand through his hair, and started again.

“She… Peggy told you stories about me, right? Me and the Howlies?”

“Yup, any time she was over. Always entertaining hearing about you, paragon of American Virtue, disobeying orders left and right.”

“So… you know about Bucky right? He was my…… best friend back then. Ever since we were kids. Always getting me out of the fights I started.”

“Yea, Peggy told me about him, made it sound like he was a little more than your best friend though.” Steve actually started to turn red.

“W-well, did she tell you about our last mission together? The one in the alps?”

“...She did. He got hit with a Hydra weapon, right? Blasted through the train car? She said that was when you found out you couldn’t get drunk.”

He nodded. His ears had drooped down, pressed sadly against his head.

“Yea. He… I couldn’t reach his hand in time. He took the hit for me, and it killed him, because I didn’t see it coming and I was too slow to catch him.”

“He saved you. That was his choice. I doubt he regretted it for an instant.”

“You sound just like Peggy. That may have been his choice, but he died because he took a hit instead of me. And I.. I know you can fly, and it was a truck, not a train, a bridge, not a mountain cliff, but…” He shook his head violently.

“Damnit Tony, it was just like that scene all over again! It played out almost exactly the same. For a second, I could just see him, falling again, with nothing I could do! I don’t care if you think you can take the hit! I can’t see someone else die trying to protect me! What good is this serum if I can’t take a hit, if I can’t protect my friends.” After he finished, Steve’s whole body seemed to droop. He looked far more human, more exhausted than Tony had ever seen him look before. This was Steve Rogers, not Captain America.

Tony let out a breath, realization flooding him. He had never taken into consideration how much Cap had lost. Bucky’s death must still be a very fresh wound to him. It probably felt like it had only happened a year ago, or maybe less.

“Ok. Ok, I can understand that.” He looked at Steve somberly. “I can’t promise that I’ll stop taking hits completely. I still have the best protection out of all of us, and it’s a little bit of a habit at this point. I protect the people I care about. Always have. But I’ll try to stop throwing myself into danger like that. Warn you guys, take out the threat, stuff like that.”

Steve nodded. “I understand. I did the same thing for the Howlies pretty darn often.”

They were quite for a few minutes. Then Tony broke the silence.

“Alright, change forms you big lug. And move over a bit.” Steve obliged, turning into a shaggy golden mutt that looked like it had hints of just about every large breed of dog in existence. Tony switched over to his cat form, and soon both were curled up on the seat in the sun, Tony resting on Steve’s back and rumbling with the purr he knew often soothed his teammates.

That’s how Clint, Natasha, and Bruce found them a few hours later, both fast asleep, Tony still purring softly and Steve looking more relaxed than he had in a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> This is just the first in what I hope to be a series of various one-shots from the same universe. This is pre- CA:TWS, but Bucky will be found eventually. No Civ War or Age of Ultron will happen, and certainly no IW/Endgame.
> 
> Check out my Tumblr, Rogue Ink Glitch, for a bunch of random fandom stuff, including Marvel, or just to say hi!  
> https://rogueinkglitch.tumblr.com/


End file.
